


Working Out the Kinks

by saltfromthesea



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: M/M, Minor Kink, POV Baz, Snowed In, baz has friends, who knew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 05:54:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5993899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltfromthesea/pseuds/saltfromthesea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Baz is disturbed (ask anyone), Simon has some big ideas, and Penny isn’t home.</p><p> </p><p>I'm not so sure about the rating--it's probably only T, really--but I put it there just in case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working Out the Kinks

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to just stay in my head forever but that didn’t pan out, and I figure what better time to post it. It does not technically have anything to do with Valentine’s Day, but it is my Valentine’s Day gift to all of you. Also, this is a fluff fic masquerading as a kink fic because of who I am as a person. Also, I apologize for the super punny title. Please still love me after you read it. ANYWAY. Enjoy (I hope).

“It’s just,” Dev says, steepling his fingers and looking somberly over the half-empty beer in front of him, “you’ve just never been the easiest person to be friends with, Baz.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” I ask, affronted, and Dev just levels his gaze at me, not blinking. It’s vaguely unnerving, but I suppose it’s still better than Niall, who is nearly to the bottom of his own pint and has yet to look at me at all.

He tosses back the last gulp and scoffs. “Come on,” he says. “You know what he means. We’ve barely heard from you in months.”

This is feeling a little bit like an intervention of sorts, which seems odd, considering I was the one who called them to meet up. It had just occurred to me that it had been a while since I’d seen them, and I didn’t want them to think I’d abandoned them. Only, of course, I’d gotten here and immediately been informed that they felt like I’d abandoned them.

“Well,” I say, uncharacteristically flustered, “it’s not like you were calling me either, you know.”

Niall’s rolling his eyes, looking off over my head. “Please,” he says. “You’ve made it perfectly clear what your priorities are. After all, we were always just your sidekicks, weren’t we?”

“Hey,” I say, wounded, but also uncomfortably aware that I have actually once or twice referred to them, only sort-of jokingly, as my minions. “That’s not fair.”

Niall opens his mouth again but Dev, always the smoother-over, cuts him off. “What he means,” he says, “is that things have always been a little different for you than for us. You always had something going on, you know? Some secret mission or some big plan. It was easy enough for us to get left behind.”

“Not to mention, you could get away with murder,” Niall mutters.

Dev elbows him before saying, “Well, to be fair, murder may have actually _been_ the plan, occasionally.” He doesn’t look as angry with me as Niall does, but I can’t tell if this is because he’s always been more level-headed, or if it’s because he’s family, and he _has_ to forgive me.

"Still,” Niall says acidly, “do you think either of us could have gotten away with dating Simon Freaking Snow?”

“I wasn’t aware you wanted to, Niall,” I say, matching his tone, and his gaze finally snaps to mine.

“Not what I meant, Baz, and you know it,” he growls at me, and Dev puts a hand on his forearm. Niall shrugs him off. “I’m just saying, he was the damn _Mage’s Heir_! He was supposed to be our big enemy! We spent how many years listening to talk about how we were finally going to manage to take him out, and then all of a sudden you’re…you’re…”

“Taking him out?” Dev says, then giggles at his own joke as Niall and I throw him equally scathing looks. He never could hold his liquor.

“For Crowley’s sake,” I saying, downing the last of my own drink. “We’ve talked about this. It just sort of happened. But if my father isn’t protesting—much—I’d like to think you two would at least be able to—”

“Well of course no one’s arguing, because it’s you, isn’t it?” Niall says. “You think there wouldn’t have been hell to pay if Dev had ever actually managed to score a date with Wellbelove or something?”

"Mmm,” Dev says wistfully. “ _Agatha_.”

 “You could do better,” I tell him.

 “You’d know,” he shoots back, but he’s grinning.

 “It’s not just that though,” Niall says, pulling at his collar and looking down at the table again. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, that’s annoying as all hell, but it’s just—”

He picks up his empty glass and puts it down again, as though hoping it will magically refill itself. Of course, it _could_ , but none of us are about to cast any spells here—the bar is crawling with Normals.

“Spit it out, Niall,” I say, and he sighs, and looks at me.

“How come you haven’t had us round for tea, or something?” he says.

This is not what I was expecting. “What?”

The two of them exchange a look, and I wonder if they rehearsed this before I got here.

"This thing with Snow,” Dev says cautiously. “I assume it’s not just a…a passing fancy?”

“No,” I say, frowning. “I don’t think it’s passing.”

“Right,” he shrugs, “so if he’s going to be a part of your life, we thought you’d maybe, I don’t know. Want us all to hang out, or something.”

“Unless you don’t,” Niall grouses. “Unless you were always just marking time with us, and now you’ve got the real friends you wanted, and you can’t be bothered with us anymore.”

“No,” I say, alarmed. “No, that’s not it at all. I just didn’t think you’d be interested, or comfortable, or—”

“We’re your _friends_ , Baz,” he says, sounding exasperated now. “And we went to school with the bloke as long as you did, I think we’d be able to come up with something to say. Even if he doesn’t have magic anymore.”

“Well, I wouldn’t bring _that_ up,” I say dryly, still surprised at the turn this conversation has taken. “But, yeah. Okay, yeah. I’d um, I’d like that. And I’m—I’m sorry. For making you feel like I didn’t want you around.”

Dev lets out a long, low whistle. “Well, I never thought I’d see the day,” he drawls. “A Pitch, apologizing?”

Even Niall has to crack a smile at that. He’s looking more relaxed already. I think that outburst did him some good.

“Oh, what the hell,” he says, looking back and forth between me and Dev. “I’ll get the next round.”

 

\---

 

When we leave a little while later, the air is thick with snow. The three of us huddle together beneath a street lamp as Dev zips his coat up to his chin and Niall shoves his hands in his coat pockets, shifting from foot to foot.

“You still living in Fiona’s old apartment?” Dev asks me.

“Yeah,” I say, then, testing the waters, “but I’m headed over to Snow’s now, actually.”

“Do you still call him by his surname?” Niall asks curiously, and I consider.

“More often than not,” I say.

He shakes his head. “So fucking weird, man.”

I don’t protest at all—the whole thing _is_ fucking weird, I certainly never saw it coming—but he’s already taking it back.

"I guess I should have seen it coming, though,” he says. “I mean, the freak practically threatened to beat me to a pulp eighth year, when you didn’t turn up, if I didn’t tell him _everything I knew_ about your whereabouts.”

This is not a story I’ve heard before, but it sounds about right.

“Sorry,” I say. “He has behavioral issues. We’re working on it.”

He blinks at me. “So fucking weird,” he says again, under his breath, then jerks his head at Dev. “Well, come on then,” he says—they share a flat nearby. “I’m fucking freezing to death. Baz, I expect we’ll hear from you soon.” He says this last bit like a threat, which is how I know we’re okay.

None of us are really huggers, but the situation seem to call for something, so they both thump me on the back a couple of times before they start off. After a couple of steps, Dev turns back and leers at me. “Looks like you might get snowed in tonight,” he says, waggling his eyebrows lewdly at me.

Coming from him, this is somewhat startling, but I grin. “I might,” I shout back, and laugh when I hear Niall groan.

“Oh stop it,” he says, shoving Dev into a pile of snow. “Don’t be crass. We both know Baz is secretly a big romantic softie.”

I resent this implication. It doesn’t go with my rebel-without-a-cause look. I flip him off in lieu of saying goodbye, and he smirks at me.

The flat Simon shares with Penelope isn’t far, but it’s snowing in earnest now, and everything takes twice as long. I’m winded by the time I struggle through the snowdrifts up to his front door, pulling out my—technically illegal—set of keys. I’m here often enough that it was starting to feel silly, waiting around for one of them to let me in. Penny and I talked it over, and while it would have been easy enough for me to spell the door open every time I came, they do have Normal neighbors, and why take the risk? We’d **_Two is better than one_** -d Simon’s keys, and now I had my own shiny set. What the landlord doesn’t know what hurt him.

Three flights of stairs later, I’m shaking off the snow and letting myself in the front door. Simon’s sprawled on the couch inside, flipping through a magazine. “Hi, Baz,” he says, not looking up.

“How’d you know it was me?” I ask, kicking my boots off and padding over to him.

“It’s always you,” he says. “Or Penny, but she just called. She’s across town at a friend’s, studying for a final, and she’s just going to stay there for the night, says the weather is way too bad to go out in.” He pauses, then adds, “I always know when it’s you. Penny walks way more aggressively.”

Unsurprising.

Simon moves to the end of the couch, hooking his legs over the arm so there’s room for me to sit by his head. “Is the weather really that bad?” he asks and I settle into the cushions beside him.

“It’s not good,” I say, and he grins.

“So I suppose I’m stuck with you all night, then,” he says.

The magazine he was reading is open on his chest, and I cock my head at it. “Are you reading _Cosmo_?”

"Oh,” he says, craning his neck so he’s looking at me upside-down. “Yeah.”

“Is that Penny’s?”

He snorts. “Yeah _right_ ,” he says. “Don’t let her catch you saying that, you’ll get a twenty minute lecture on the media’s policing of women’s bodies.”

“Noted,” I say, although honestly this probably _is_ a conversation Penny and I will end up having at some point. “So you just picked it up for yourself then, did you?”

He rolls the magazine up and whacks me on the thigh with it. “No,” he says. “It belongs to our downstairs neighbor, we got all her mail this week by mistake. I’ll bring it round tomorrow. But you should know there is some fascinating stuff in here.”

“Really,” I say, amused. “Like what?”

“Well,” he says, flipping onto his stomach and propping the magazine open against my leg. “Did you know that, apparently, couples who get ‘a little kinky’ are more satisfied in their relationships than ones that don’t?”

This is the second time today that I’ve been blindsided by a sentence I did not see coming at all. My throat suddenly feels very dry, and I swallow. Hard.

Simon apparently doesn’t notice, because he’s still chattering away.

“They’ve got a list of things they say are common fantasies, but I don’t know, some of them sound a little out there to me. I mean, do people _really_ do these things?”

This is making me nervous. I’ve had some fantasies that I’m pretty sure will never grace the pages of _Cosmopolitan_. But what do I know about women’s magazines? Maybe they _are_ all strange. Still, though, I honestly can’t tell if we’re making fun of magazine articles or if we’re flirting, and it’s driving me crazy. _I’m_ supposed to be the enigmatic one in this relationship. No wonder he’s so frustrated with me all the time.

“All right,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant. “Hit me with the weird ones.”

He flips back a couple of pages. “Well, bondage is a big one,” he says matter-of-factly. “They are all about tying each other up. There’s like, nineteen different examples of it on here—including something called _invisible bondage_ , where you just like, _pretend_ to tie each other up? Weird.”

Well, okay. That’s fair, I think. It’s a pretty common fantasy, but it’s not for everyone, and I could see him not being into it. Of course, I’d be lying if I said _I_ hadn’t thought about it.

“Dirty talk,” Simon laughs, showing me the page. “Look, they actually have a list of sample phrases.”

I’ve had _that_ fantasy since our sixth year, when he’d annoyed me by tapping his pen so much that I spelled it stuck to his hand. He hadn’t been able to get it off himself, and had gotten so frustrated he’d ended up screaming, “ _Just get it off!_ ” in my face—an encounter that had, frankly, given me enough material for weeks of daydreams.

“Role-playing,” he continues, almost absentmindedly.

Had that one, too. What? You can’t blame me if the thought of Simon dressed like a fireman hasn’t _occasionally_ crossed my mind. I mean, I _am_ flammable.

“Food in bed—I mean, that’s just kind of gross, don’t you think?”

Nope. Had it. And, frankly, given his love affair with all things edible, kind of surprised he hasn’t. But maybe he likes to keep things separate.

“…doing it in a public place…”

Had it.

“…blindfolds…wait, shouldn’t that count as bondage? Whatever…”

Oh Crowley, I’ve had that one, too. Is he seriously telling me he hasn’t had a single one of these fantasies? Either I must be some sort of raging sex fiend, or my boyfriend is just hopelessly vanilla. Honestly, I’m not sure which is worse.

Unbelievably, he’s still going. “Hmm,” he says, flipping a page. “Shower sex—that just seems difficult though, doesn’t it? Not to mention dangerous, I mean, what if somebody slipped and cracked their head open—”

I can’t take it anymore. “Oh, for the love of—” I say, loud enough that he jumps and looks up at me. “SHOWER SEX IS A PRETTY BASIC ONE, SNOW! Come on! _Everyone_ has that fantasy! I’m not sure it can even be called a kink!”

To my surprise, he snorts out a laugh. “God, finally,” he says. “I can’t believe it took you this long to crack. I knew at least _one_ of those had to get you.”

 _One_ of them? Ha. But I’m too busy blinking at him to actually say anything.

“Okay,” he says, raising an eyebrow in a way that makes me bizarrely proud, because he learned that move from me. “We’ve got this apartment to ourselves until at least tomorrow morning. Which one do you want to try first?”

"Wait,” I say. I practically have whiplash from this conversation. “What?”

But that’s how, a few minutes later, I find myself tying Simon Snow’s wrists to his bedframe.

"Why do you even have this rope lying around?” I ask him as I methodically tighten a knot. I’m perhaps paying a bit too much attention to detail, here, but I’m feeling weirdly self-conscious.

“I don’t actually know,” he said. “I think it’s left over from when Penny and I were moving in, and I just never got rid of it. But you never know when it’s going to come in handy.”

“No kidding,” I murmur. I’ve finished one wrist so I move on to the other.

“Oh, hey,” Simon says suddenly, “how was seeing Dev and Niall? That was tonight, right?”

I look up at him. In my head, I hear Niall’s voice. _So fucking weird._

“Yeah,” I say cautiously. “It was all right. They aren’t too pleased with me. They seem to think I’ve been neglecting them for, you know. You.”

“Oh,” he says. “Well, you are.” I shoot him another look and he laughs. “What? I’m not _complaining_ about it.” Still, I jerk on the rope a bit more savagely than I would have, otherwise.

"They want to come over,” I say, and his eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline.

“Right now?”

“No, you idiot,” I say. “Not _right now_. Just like, sometime. In general. To hang out.”

“Well, that makes sense,” he says. “I mean, you hang out with my friends all the time.”

“Friend,” I correct him. “Singular.”

“Ouch,” he says, but he’s smirking at me. “Don’t be rude.”

I am completely, honestly losing all of my chill right now, and Simon can absolutely tell, which is infuriating, because he’s never been the perceptive type. Still, these knots are about as tight as I’m going to get them, so I sit back, the mattress sagging slightly beneath my weight. Simon tugs his wrists experimentally, and I’m satisfied to note that nothing budges at all.

“You tie pretty quality knots, Baz,” he says, sounding impressed.

“Well, yeah,” I say, shrugging. “I _was_ supposed to be evil, remember? These are just skills my family thought it would be best to acquire.”

He snorts. “Please,” he says. “ _No one_ in your family is evil. I mean, Mordelia, maybe, but like, not in a supervillain way. Even your dad is just kind of—”

I lean forward, burying my face in his quilt. “Snow,” I groan, “ _please_ tell me we aren’t talking about _my father_ right now.”

"Oh, right,” he says. I glance up, and we eye each other over what suddenly seems like an unreasonably vast expanse of bed. We aren’t touching at all. “So…” he continues. “Now what?”

“Uh,” I say, because I don’t actually know. My fantasies tend to skip the awkward beginnings of things and go straight into the part where I’m some sort of expert in whatever we’re doing.

“Maybe I should have worn something with buttons,” Simon says dolefully, looking down at his t-shirt. “This seems a little restrictive. Although I guess that’s kind of the point…”

He is actually, literally, _tied to the headboard_ right now, which means the impetus is on me to do whatever comes next. Only I don’t know what comes next.

It has become abruptly clear to me that fantasizing about all these things is one thing, but actually trying to do them is another matter entirely.

“Baz?” Simon says, disrupting me from my thoughts, and I sort of panic and propel myself forward, mashing my face against his, and he makes a choking sound as he both giggles and tries not to giggle, and, yeah, I absolutely cannot do this.

He makes a little noise of surprise as I roll off the bed and run into the other room, where I close my eyes and lean back against the wall, breathing heavily. I’m not entirely sure why I’m so freaked out—somewhere, I’m sure, sixteen-year-old me is sounding cursing present-day-me—other than the fact that nothing was playing out the way it ever does in my head.

There’s a ringing in my ears, and once it wears off, I realize that Simon is calling my name.

“What?” I shout back.

“Don’t leave!” he says, and he sounds worried.

I stomp back to the doorway and stand there with my arms folded. “I can’t, can I?” I say. “It’s apparently the blizzard of a century out there.”

“Oh, right. Good,” he says, and sighs. “Baz, look. Will you just…come here?”

“Absolutely not,” I say, shaking my head. “I just—I don’t—” He looks confused, and I don’t blame him, because I can’t explain myself. Maybe it isn’t anything more than so many years of wanting him, piled one on top of the other. The sudden pressure that comes with getting something I never thought I’d have.

“Baz,” he wheedles, “come on.” And suddenly I feel it again, the weight of it, making it hard to breathe.

“Why are you pushing this?” I ask him, and he looks startled, like he’s only just realizing I’m not playing around. “I _can’t_ , okay?”

“Okay,” he says, clearly bewildered. “No problem.”

“Okay,” I repeat.

"So,” he shoots me half a grin, “you’re at least going to untie me though, right?”

"No,” I growl at him. “I’m going to leave you there until Penny gets home, and let you explain your way out of _that_ one.”

“Hey!” he says, as I turn on my heel and march into the other room.

“And it’ll serve you right, too!” I call back.

I do leave him there for a little bit—not _that_ long—before coming back in and untying him. He elbows me playfully in the chest, rubbing his wrists, and then heads immediately to the kitchen. I listen to him bang around in there for a minute, then follow him in. _Someone_ has to make sure he doesn’t burn the whole building down.

Later, he sweet-talks me into watching Dr. Who with him, and he falls asleep on the couch with his head on my lap, my arm over his neck. It’s always been my favorite way to end the day, and I’m slowly coming to the realization that, _fuck_ , Niall might be right. I _am_ just a big romantic.

A big boring, romantic softie. My reputation will never recover.

It’s bothering me, though. Probably more than it should. I don’t know how I could have so many big ideas and then just choke like that. It gets to me enough that I can’t fall asleep at all. I just lay here in the dark beside a blissfully passed-out Simon, staring at the ceiling, going around and around in my head.

It feels like I’ve been tossing and turning for hours when Simon suddenly scares the piss out of me by rolling over and saying, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“ _Shit_ , Snow,” I say, once my heartbeat has returned to normal. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Not bloody likely,” he says, but he says it fondly. “You’re thinking way too loudly over there.”

He peers at me through the darkness, and for a few moments we just lay there, curled on our sides, facing each other. I feel like the ball is in my court, and once again, I don’t know what the right move is. But then he rescues me.

“Look,” he says. “Maybe we just started too big.”

“I think,” I say thoughtfully, because I have been thinking about it so much, “that I was just startled. You know? I wasn’t expecting it, and then I psyched myself out.”

He holds his breath for a second, then blows it all out. “I know,” he says. “It’s my fault. I did sort of spring it on you.”

“You really did,” I say, and I think it’s a good sign that I’m actually a little amused now. “But why _did_ you? Why was this suddenly so important to you? I mean, it’s not like we’ve been together fifteen years and our relationship needs a little spicing up. It hasn’t been that long—there are plenty of things that are still new.”

He burrows deeper into the blankets, muffling his voice. “I just worry sometimes,” he says. “I don’t have magic anymore. It’s really never coming back. So…what if I just can’t keep up? What if I start to bore you, or what if I just get too…too _Normal_?”

“So your solution was to attack me with an article from Cosmo?” I ask him, and I feel my lip twitching up in a grin.

“Yeah, well, when you put it _that_ way,” he grumbles. “Anyway, I didn’t say it was rational. I just mean…well, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

“ _Simon_ ,” I breathe, and I reach for him beneath the blankets, my fingers closing around his forearm. “That’s never going to happen.”

“How do you know?” he blinks owlishly at me. “I mean, how could you know that?”

“I just do,” I say. “I mean, for starters, your magic was never what made you interesting. It made you terrifying sometimes, sure, but it was always about more than that. And second of all, I think you’re grossly underestimating my affection for you if you think I’m just going to get _bored_.”

“Yeah?” he asks, and I swallow.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice dropping down into a husky timbre that I barely recognize. “I mean, I lived with you for eight years. If that didn’t make me sick of you, I don’t think anything will.”

He grins, then pushes his knee in between my thighs in a way that makes my breath hitch in the back of my throat. “All right,” he says. “Then we just have to do _one thing_ so this isn’t a completely wasted experience.”

“What?” I ask warily, but he’s already rolling away from me and dangling off his side of the bed, groping for something underneath. I push myself up on one elbow, trying to figure out what the hell he’s up to. When he hauls himself back up, his shirt is on the floor somewhere and in his hand is a bottle of—

“Is that chocolate sauce?” I ask him.

“Yep,” he says.

“You sleep with that under your _bed_?” I say, appalled.

“Not like, all the time,” he explains. “I just wanted to be prepared!”

“You are such an idiot,” I tell him, and he grins.

“No, look,” he says. “This is easy. And no pressure. I mean, seriously.”

He flops back against the pillows, opens the bottle, and upends it over his chest.

Nothing happens.

He frowns, then whacks the bottom of the bottle. A small dollop of chocolate sauce glops out, landing on his collarbone. It is probably the least sexy thing I’ve ever seen in my life. But he looks pleased with himself, capping the bottle and putting it on his nightstand before looking over at me.

“Okay,” he says. “Go ahead.”

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” I say, and now I’m the one trying desperately not to snigger.

“Baz,” he says seriously. “This is like, the least intimidating thing we could be doing right now.” And he’s right—it’s hard to second-guess myself when I’m fighting off a serious case of the giggles.

“All right,” I say, army-crawling towards him. “You’re the biggest freak I’ve ever met, but fine. Also, what _is_ it with you and food?”

He smiles languidly as I roll over him, planting my knee in between his legs. Slowly, almost absent-mindedly, I run the backs of my fingers across his stomach, not thinking about it, just touching him where I want to touch him. My hand comes to rest against his rib cage, and I feel his heart beating below my fingertips, and neither of us, it seems, feels the need to say anything now.

I look down at him, and quietly, steadily, he meets my gaze. I can feel his chest rising and falling beneath me, and I lower my mouth to his collarbone.

“See?” he says when I lift my head again, his face just inches below mine. His hand slides up the back of my neck, threading through my hair. “Baby steps.”

When I kiss him, it tastes like chocolate.

 

\---

 

The light is strange when I wake up the next morning, which makes me think it’s still snowing. I sit up, glancing over at Simon, who’s still asleep (I always wake up before he does). He’s on his back, his head turned to one side, his bronze hair tousled and the blanket pushed dangerously low on his hips (He gets overheated when he sleeps, so it’s a good thing I’m always cold). He looks soft and indolent in the morning light.

I watch him for a little bit—old habits die hard—then swing my legs over the side of the bed with half a mind to check the weather. Surely classes have been cancelled—the whole city is shut down.

I’ve just started to stand when Simon throws an arm around my waste, yanking me back down. “No,” he says sleepily against my skin. “Stay.” I can feel his nose pressed into my spine and his breath against the small of my back, which doesn’t sound like it should be sexy but is, unbearably. Then he ruins it by licking me.

“Gross!” I yelp, laughing and pushing him away, like I wasn’t just licking chocolate sauce off his neck last night. “Knock it off.”

He smiles lazily, his eyes still heavily with sleep, then wrestles me down to the mattress, pinning me by the shoulders. “Or else what?” he asks.

“Or else nothing,” I inform him. “I’m just saying, there are better things you can do with your tongue.”

His jaw drops, and he looks mildly scandalized, but delighted about it. “Well, well, well,” he says. “Is that _dirty talk_ from you, Pitch?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Would we actually classify that as dirty?”

"It’s not _clean_ ,” he says, and then both of our phones chime simultaneously. We look at each other for a second, then he grabs them off the bedside table and hands me mine.

I’ve got an email from the university. “Classes are cancelled,” I tell him. “Because of the weather.”

“Penny’s not coming home till tonight,” he responds. “She says the snow isn’t supposed to stop until late.”

Simon looks at me, and I look back at him, and I start to say, “Well, what on earth will we do to pass the time?” but I’ve barely gotten a word out before he tosses his phone over his shoulder and tackles me, and his mouth suddenly a much more pressing concern than anything that would have come out of mine.

 _Ha_ , I think woozily, my last coherent moment before I’m completely lost in him. _Take that, Niall_.


End file.
